


dances with star

by isawet



Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Short, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isawet/pseuds/isawet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short snippet of how life in Wyoming as a small town cop is somehow more dangerous than a Philly beat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dances with star

Vic slides her nail under the clear plastic cover of the jewel case and pops it up. The disc tumbles into her fingers, light slanting through the cracked window’s of Walt’s car, playing rainbows on the ceiling. Walt’s jaw moves minutely, and Vic smiles.

“No static no problem,” she says, and feeds it into the player. Something twangy sputters out of Walt’s old speakers, one of those young country singers that make Vic’s teeth ache with homesickness for Philadelphia. Walt reaches out and slaps the tuning button, cutting off the opening lyric mid-drawl. “Aw,” Vic says, faux-disappointed, “don’t like that banjo sound?”

“Good country is good country,” Walt says, raising a hand off the wheel to gesture with his pointer finger. “That… is not good country.”

“Aww Walt,” Vic teases, “are you pining for some Patsy Cline?” Walt’s lips quirk up at the corners, ever so slightly. Victory. Vic leans her head back against the seat, eyes squinted up against the sun even though she’s got big highway patrol cop aviators taking off the worst of the glare. The silence grows between them, worn and comfortable, and Vic lets her eyes slit shut, listening to the ping of gravel against the undercarriage. 

“Nothing wrong with a little Patsy Cline,” Walt says, and Vic lets the smile split her face wide, match the glint of teeth Walt shows as he smiles, just the littlest bit. 

“ _Feelings_ ,” Vic hums, and Walt’s fledgling smile blossoms, just as the world turns upside down.

//

Vic thinks at first that they were hit by another car, but even as her head hits the window, her vision exploding in white light, she dismisses the idea: Walt would have noticed the dust kick up, he would have seen it coming. As their bodies jerk, whipped like ragdolls against the seatbelt, she sees Walt stretch an arm out, flung towards her, his fingers brushing her shoulder with her last blink before loss of consciousness.

//

Vic wakes up to the nose-scorching stink of clean, hospital bleach and hospital sheets, scratchy thin against the wide expanse of skin hospital gowns leave exposed. “Fuck,” she groans, forcing her eyes open against florescent lighting. She blinks the grit out of her eyes. “Jesusfuck.”

Henry unfolds himself from a visitors chair next to her bed, a blur of dull plaid in her peripheral vision. Vic rolls her head to the side, pain exploding in her temples, her shoulders, her neck. “Even my toes hurt,” she says, her voice grinding out coarse.

Henry offers her a cup filled with thin bits of ice. “That is not surprising, considering.”

“Considering what?” Vic grunts, struggling to sit up. She fails, pain flaring up her torso, but Henry catches her before she can fall back, his palms big and warm on her spine as he eases her back onto shitty hospital pillows. She leans away from his touch, struggling to prop herself up. “What the fuck happened?”

Henry places two fingers to the meaty part of her right shoulder and applies very little pressure. Vic hisses and slumps back despite herself. “Considering the fact that you were in a vehicle that inadvertently detonated an incendiary device.”

Vic twitches her fingers and is gratified by the lack of blinding pain. She rolls her wrists and winces a little, takes a deep breath and forces herself to an upright position, cursing under her breath. “Absoroka has IEDs?”

“Well,” Henry says, moving around the bed to another chair, draped in khaki uniform. He lifts it up and offers it to her. “Perhaps just the one.”

//

Walt has a length of white gauze taped around his temples like a hippie headband and his right wrist in a brace, middle and pointer fingers taped together at a crooked angle. His mouth thins into a flat line when he sees her, lips gone white with pressure. “I told you to keep her in that bed,” he says to Henry, and Henry shrugs from his post at Vic’s elbow, hovering with a patient pressure Vic absolutely resents.

“It is both useless and insulting to argue with a woman with good aim,” Henry says. Vic pauses to take deep breaths, winded from the short walk from Henry’s truck to the burned-out remains of the Sheriff's vehicle. Vic can see that the passenger side is more mangled than the drivers, the rear bumper charred and the back wheels burst.

Branch rises from where he’s poking around in the brush and walks over, his fingers hooked in his belt loops. “Heya Vic. Looking rough.” He moves to take over Henry’s spot at her elbow, waiting for her to stumble, and Henry digs in. They regard each other for a long moment. Vic rolls her eyes.

“Just what a lady likes to hear,” she says, and shoves past them both with a purposeful stride, trying not to let her expression twist up with the effort of walking without a limp.

“Oughtta be on bed rest,” Walt says, but beckons her over to look at the small crater in the road. “Pipe bomb, buried loose under the road.”

“You know,” Vic says, pressing a hand to her ribs, “this could have been avoided if you had real roads made of concrete instead of ones you can dig into.”

“Ferg’s on the phone with different vendors in the area,” Walt says. “Materials were generic, might get lucky anyway.”

“You know how Ferg gets,” Branch says, reappearing at her elbow. “Could always use another hand on the grinder.” Vic missteps, her boot sliding against loose rock, and Branch catches her around the waist, steadies her and then lets go, so fast she doesn’t have time to shove him off. Her vision narrows and she takes three deep breaths, her knuckles to her temples. Walt and Henry look politely into the distance. “Average road’s not made of concrete,” Branch comments blandly. “Layer of composite base covered by asphalt.”

“Well,” Vic says, ignoring Branch completely “if you all insist, I’ll hold it down with Ferg.”

Henry and Walt share one of their looks. “I will drive you,” Henry says.

 

Vic makes it up the step of Henry’s truck, slumping down into the thin upholstery. The door creaks loud enough to make her wince when Henry shuts it, smoothly easing into the driver’s seat.

“You are indispensible to Walt,” Henry says, and Vic leans her head against the hot glass of the window. “There is no shame in letting the others handle this case while you recover.” 

“I’ll add it to the resume,” she says blandly. “I want to work because it’s my job and I’m good at it, Henry, not because I worship at the feet of Walt Longmire.” Henry slows to a stop, the brakes straining, and Vic takes her sunglasses off.

A coyote trots across the road, licking at its whiskers, mottled brown coat blending him among the rocks as he lopes into the desert, breaking into a run. Dust kicks up behind his paws.

“It is ultimately your decision,” Henry says, and the truck rolls forward again.

Vic shifts her weight minutely and has to bite the inside of her cheek through a full body spasm of pain. She looks after where the coyote ran into the scrub and sees nothing. “Maybe I’ll take a day off,” she says, “just the one.” She lets her head fall back against the seat and sighs. 

“You are indispensable to Walt Longmire,” Henry says again, and Vic feels the warmth of Wyoming’s sun all along her skin. “as are all his friends.”


End file.
